GMC Tournament Preview

This is going to be the first of a four part preview from now till Saturday. Today will cover my predictions on where each of the GMC teams will be seeded. Tomorrow, I will preview the Primetime Shootout games for Friday which St. Joe's is playing in that I will be going to. Friday we'll take a look at the State Tournament, since the brackets have been pushed off till then with all the snow. I'll take a look at each group and section and give my predictions for who I like to come out of each group and who I like to win the TOC. Because there is so many teams this year with the new sub .500 rule, there is going to be a lot of teams who normally don't make it in there in the Tournament which is refreshing. And then on Saturday, I will give my predictions for the GMC Tournament. I'm going to do that on a round by round basis thought to keep things interesting and not to give it all away at the beginning. So here goes my predicted seeding for this year's GMC. We'll see how accurate I was on Saturday.

1) St. Joe's 18-3, 15-0 in conference, 1 loss in the state to St. Anthony's. We don't have a lot of impressive conference wins because frankly, our division is down this year and when you have to play 16 games against them, you're not going to get many chances at all to play cross-divisional games. In fact, we haven't played one, which could hurt us. Our best win by far was our 26 point win over East Brunswick. We also beat Piscataway by 44 earlier this year which is a solid win as well. Monroe's schedule was definitely harder in the GMC, but we are undefeated in the conference playing decent schools, plus as I said our only loss in state is to perennial powerhouse St. Anthony's so you're almost always going to be a one seed with that resume.

2) Monroe 17-2, 14-1 in conference, to me, St. Joe's and Monroe are easily the top two teams in the conference. Monroe has a lot of close games though which is something Joe's hasn't had. Besides the game at home against Old Bridge, after coming back from Atlanta, where Joe's won by 5, their closest game has been 11 points in conference play. To me St. Joe's is less likely to have an upset early than Monroe. To me Monroe could lose to basically anyone in their division in the county tournament, while Joe's probably wouldn't get a tough matchup till the Semifinals at least where they would probably play their rival East Brunswick. Monroe in a 7-10 matchup could certainly have their hands full.

3) Bishop Ahr 14-2, 12-1 in conference. They are now in the driver's seat to win the GMC Blue with just 2 days left in the regular season. They have some quality wins in beating East Brunswick and Cardinal McCarrick and have shown that they're well deserving of being a top 3 seed.

4) East Brunswick 17-3, 15-3 in conference. The major black eye for them is the loss to Old Bridge. Besides that, they have put together a great year and will probably be a tough out in the State Tournament. They have beaten New Brunswick, North Brunswick and Piscataway. They have played a tougher schedule than the team I'm placing 5th who doesn't have as tough a resume so I expect this is where they'll be seeded.

5) Spotswood 15-2, 12-2 in conference. Another team that has played very well this year and maybe better than people expected them to. They beat Bishop Ahr which is their best win this season and have shown that they're deserving of a 5 seed.

6) Sayreville 12-6, 11-5 in conference. I liked what I saw from this team last year and think they could definitely be a threat in this. They're coming in hot. They won 6 of their last 8 games and are currently sitting in 2nd in what I consider to be the toughest division this year in the GMC White.

7) Cardinal McCarrick 13-9, 8-8 in conference. They're like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get from this team. They've lost 4 of their last 5 in GMC play but also have some impressive wins. They're close to New Brunswick but I feel they have a better resume with wins over Sayreville, Carteret, Piscataway, North Brunswick, etc. They also have some big game experience playing close with Plainfield as well as beating Westfield.

8) Dunellen 9-8, 8-6 in conference. Pretty sure the Gold winner is always here.

9) New Brunswick 13-8, 11-7 in conference. They're 7-6 in the White division and gave Monroe their only conference loss. They also beat Piscataway and North Brunswick.

10) North Brunswick 10-10, 9-9 in conference. They beat Sayreville, Cardinal McCarrick and New Brunswick.

Here's the rest of the seedings in my opinion.

11) Metuchen 11-6, 7-5 in conference.

12) Carteret 9-10, 8-9 in conference.

13) Middlesex 14-5, 9-4 in conference.

14) Piscataway 9-10, 8-9 in conference.

15) Old Bridge 10-11, 7-10 in conference.

16) South Brunswick 8-10, 8-10 in conference.

17) Colonia 7-12, 7-8 in conference.

18) J.F. Kennedy 11-10, 7-10 in conference.

19) Edison 7-12, 7-12 in conference.

20) Perth Amboy 8-11, 8-9 in conference.

21) Woodbridge 5-14, 5-13 in conference.

22) South Plainfield 4-14, 3-14 in conference.

23) Highland Park 6-12, 5-10 in conference.

24) South River 9-13, 5-11 in conference.

25) South Amboy 10-10, 6-7 in conference.

26) East Brunswick Tech 10-7, 3-6 in conference.

27) Perth Amboy Tech 9-10, 2-7 in conference.

28) J.P. Stevens 1-19, 1-18 in conference.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading my projected seedings for the GMC Tournament coming up. We'll see how accurate I was in a couple days when I talk about the bracket and give my picks for the first round games on Saturday. Should be a great month and a half coming up with the county and State tournament, the start of the Olympics on Friday, conference tournaments starting at the beginning of March going into March Madness and of course the start of Spring Training. It is one of my favorite times of the year as a sports and more specifically basketball fan. Hope everyone enjoys all these sporting events coming up as well as the snow today into tomorrow. Let's hope we get another day off. I'll be back tomorrow to preview the 4 games at Kean University on Friday night.